The present invention relates generally to animal barriers, and more particularly, to a guard utilizing a series of rotatable elements to inhibit the passage of an animal along a structure, such as a cable or pole.
Animals such as squirrels and other rodents often cause extensive damage to structures that carry electricity and telecommunications signals, as well buildings that are connected to such structures. Often, a rodent will climb up support poles or fencing and along lines or cables to reach a building or electrical structure onto which they inflict damage by clawing, chewing or short circuiting a power source. Roofs and attics of a residential home, electrical transformers where a potential difference in voltage is realized, coverings for power or communications lines, and other structures are examples of locations where animals cause damage.
Various animal barriers for power lines, communications lines, poles, fencing, electrical transformers and substations, guy wires, bird feeders, and other applications have been proposed. However, such barriers have failed to fully deter squirrels or other animals from climbing up vertical structures, such as poles or fencing, or crawling along a line or wire. Additionally, these barriers are often complicated to assemble, difficult to install and expensive.
Thus, what is needed is an animal guard for generally horizontally extending structures, such as lines, cables, or fence wiring, and vertically extending structures, such as utility poles and the like, that prevents and/or discourages the animal from attempting to pass the guard. The guard would ideally be lightweight, durable, easy to install, environmentally safe and not harmful to the animal and simple in operation to provide a reliable defense against animal damage to property.
The present invention provides an animal guard with a multitude of rotatable elements that can be securely mounted on a generally vertical or horizontal structure. The rotatable elements may be of varying shapes and are designed to provide an unsteady footing for animals attempting to cross the object to continue travel along the structure. The guard may also include other deterrents to further increase the effectiveness of preventing animal passage.
In accordance with one embodiment, the animal guard is configured to surround a generally vertically-extending structure, such as a pole. A plurality of hollow rotatable elements, or xe2x80x9cspinnersxe2x80x9d, are provided with a hole formed at opposing longitudinal ends. The spinners are bifurcated into two generally equal halves that attach together. A guard plate is mounted to surround the structure and has a series of cross arm brackets which extend through the end holes of the spinners to serve as end axles for rotation and to position the spinners around the circumference of the structure. A support means secures the location of the guard plate and spinners and couples the guard plate to the structure. By this design, an animal attempting to crawl up the structure will encounter the guard plate and rotatable elements surrounding the structure and will be obstructed from physically bypassing the guard plate and achieve steady footing on the rotatable elements to continue up the structure.
Another embodiment of the animal guard is provided for inhibiting animal passage along generally horizontal structures, such as cables, lines and wires. A series of hollow rotatable spinners are provided with a hole formed at opposing longitudinal ends. The spinners are bifurcated into two generally equal halves that attach together to secure the spinners around a horizontal structure. End shields are configured with a hole extending laterally therethrough to mount the end shields onto an end section of the spinners; one end shield is positioned at each of the opposite ends of a series of spinners. A gripping means is positioned adjacent to each of the outwardly facing sides of the end shields opposite of the series of spinners to grip the horizontal structure and hold the end shields and spinners at fixed positions horizontally along the line. As with the previous embodiment, an animal desiring to cross the guard will be obstructed from passage along the structure by the end shields and will be unable to achieve steady footing on the spinners.
Thus, the animal guard inhibits the travel of animals along certain structures to prevent the animals from accessing areas where they may do damage by chewing, clawing, short circuiting a power source with their body, etc. The rotatable devices employed inhibit an animal""s ability to obtain steady footing when attempting to cross the guard.